Labor policy on domestic full fee places on the right track – Government gets its facts wrong
10 April 2006
The National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) strongly supports Labor’s renewed commitment to scrap full fee paying university places for Australian undergraduate students, and believes the Federal Education Minister is misrepresenting the costs of this policy for universities.
“Federal Education Minister, Julie Bishop’s statements that Labor’s announcement to scrap full fee paying domestic undergraduate places at Australian universities would create a $2.3 billion funding black hole for Australian universities are simply incorrect,” said Dr Carolyn Allport, NTEU President.
“The facts are that the level of income Australian universities received from full fee paying domestic undergraduate students in 2004 was $94 million.”
“This is a long way short of the $2.3 billon claimed by the Minister, which also included fees from overseas students and domestic postgraduate students.”
“We hope that Labor’s weekend pledge and the Government’s decision to increase publicly funded medicine and health places form part of a broader debate in this country on the need for governments to stop using full fee places as substitute for more effective ways of growing the number of university places available to students.”
“As part of this, it is important that Labor releases all the details of how it will implement and fund this other aspects of its higher education policy, rather than waiting for the election as they did on 2004.”
“This debate also needs to examine the sustainability of a system whose growth relies largely on students incurring substantial debts, up to and exceeding $200,000 for medicine or dentistry at some institutions.”
“These high fees are beyond the reach of the vast majority of Australian students, as evidenced by the fact that only 3% of domestic students currently have opted to pay full fees.”
“There is also a need to address whether someone with a lower entry score should be able to buy a place at an Australian university when someone else with a high entry score misses out on a government supported place.”
“It is not in anyone’s interests to divert this debate by misrepresenting the facts on full fee paying domestic undergraduate places,” said Dr Allport.
Information and Comment:
Andrew Nette, NTEU Policy and Research Coordinator: (03) 9254 1910
Paul Kniest, NTEU Policy and Research Officer: (03) 9254 1910